Chris Harman's Zombie Capitalism:
a review article and further considerations on the origin of crises.
by G.Carchedi.[1]
The great merit of Zombie Capitalism by Chris Harman is that it
outlines the causes and consequences of the recurrence of crises while
at the same time describing their challenges for labour. In general,
scholarly books on this subject are not known for their readability or
their wider appeal. But this book stands out as one of the few
fortunate exceptions. It is very clearly written in as accessible a
style as possible, given the inevitable complexity of much of its
subject matter. For this reason, it is extremely useful not only for
specialists, but also for laypersons who wish to understand how the
economy got into its dire present problems after a long period that
has been dubbed the 'golden age' of capitalism. This work should be a
required reading for first year economics students as a useful
antidote to that pro-capital ideology that goes under the name of
mainstream (and particularly ne-classical and Keynesian) economics.
There are several features that recommend it, besides its
accessibility. To begin with, Harman comes down squarely in favour of
a temporalist approach (a term to be explained in a second). The
choice of a temporalist versus a simultaneist approach would seem to
be a quibble, a byzantine discussion among pundits diverting the
attention from what would seem more fundamental issues. And yet, it is
a matter of the utmost importance. As well known, Marx computes the
prices at which the commodities (produced with the average technique
within each sector) are tendentially sold, or prices of production, by
adding the average rate of profits to the value contained in the
inputs (and thus to constant and variable capital advanced). The value
of the outputs before the equalization of the profit rates is their
individual value or value contained while the addition of the average
rate of profit (instead of the surplus value actually produced) to the
value of the inputs transforms the individual value of the outputs
into their transformed value, or price of production. In short, the
value of the inputs is not transformed while the value of the outputs
is transformed into their production prices. This, in essence, is
Marx's transformation procedure, i.e. his price theory.
Even though a first critique was put forward by von
Böhm-Bawerk[2] shortly after the appearance of Capital III, by far the
most influential attack on Marx's transformation procedure has been
mounted by von Bortkiewicz[3] which has been brought to the modern
readership's attention by Sweezy.[4] Essentially, the main criticism
to Marx's approach revolves around the argument that, since the same
commodity is bought and sold at the same price, some capitalists sell
their output at their transformed value but other capitalists buy the
same products as inputs at their individual, non transformed value.
The same commodity, then, would be bought at its individual,
non-transformed value but sold at its transformed value, or production
price. This would be a logical inconsistency undermining Marx's
theoretical project. This supposed inconsistency would be responsible
for the fact that, on these assumptions, the purchasing power needed
to buy some commodities is insufficient to start a new process while
the purchasing power needed to buy some other inputs exceeds that
which is needed. Simple reproduction, or production on the same
scale, fails.[5] But if the theory cannot show how the system
reproduces itself, it is the whole theory that is called into
question.
However, after the articles by Perez, Ernst, and Carchedi
in the early 1980s'[6], it has become clear that the critique is
based on wrong the assumption that the same commodities are both the
inputs and the outputs of the same period whereas for Marx as well as
in reality the inputs of a production process are not the outputs of
the same process: the inputs enter the production period at a certain
point in time and the outputs, different commodities even if they
might be a replica of the inputs, exit the period at a different,
later point in time. This is Marx's temporalist approach. From a
temporalist perspective, the output of a period becomes the input of
the following period. For example, a machine is bought and sold at the
same price but while this is the production price for the seller (who
realizes the average rate of profit, at least tendentially) it is the
individual value for the buyer because that machine will realize more
or less than the value paid for it when the output of which that
machine is an input will be sold at its production price. As Marx
elucidates: 'Although [the inputs, G.C.] entered the labour process
with a definite value, they may come out of it with a value that is
larger or smaller, because the labour time society needs for their
production has undergone a general change.'[7] From a temporal
perspective, i.e. from the perspective of the economy as a succession
of periods of production and realization, the purported logical
inconsistency melts like snow in the sun. Not having seen this simple
point, some Marxists have accepted the simultaneist methodology, i.e.
that the same commodities are both the inputs and the outputs of the
same period, and have resorted to simultaneous equations to determine
the prices of the inputs and of the outputs of the same process
simultaneously, thus cancelling time. This is the simultaneist
approach. [8] Consequently, these authors theorize capitalism as a
system in which time does not exist. Some of them think that it is
warranted to theorize capitalism within a timeless dimension as a
first approximation and that subsequently time can be plugged into the
analysis to reach a greater realisms. But this is wishful thinking
because conclusions reached on the basis of opposite assumptions are
opposite and irreconcilable. Either I assume that time exists or I
assume that time does not exist. All the conclsions reached on the
basis of one assumption are invalid on the basis of the opposite
assumption.
The crucial point is that without time there is no
movement, without movement there is no change and without change there
is equilibrium. Capitalism, then, is seen a system in or tending
towards equilibrium, just as in orthodox economics, instead of being
as in Marx a system in or tending towards crises. If capitalism is an
equilibrium system it is also a rational system. But then the working
class is deprived of the objective grounds upon which to base its
struggle against capital: if the system is rational, the workers'
struggle for the supersession of capital is irrational and
voluntaristic because contrary to an objective, equilibrating
movement. But, as in Marx the system is irrational because it tends
objectively towards crises and thus towards its self-destruction, the
workers' struggle is grounded upon and becomes the expression of this
objective movement, it is thus rational and not voluntaristic. Seen
from a Marxist, temporal perspective the system, then, is in a
permanent state of non-equilibrium.[9] The issue of internal
consistency, the battle ground upon which both upholders and critics
of Marx have been fighting in the past decennia, is certainly
important. But the crucial point is not only that the so-called
transformation problem is a non-existent problem, once one
reintroduces time in the analysis.[10] It is even more important to
realize that the simultaneist alternative deals a deadly blow to the
workers' struggle by undermining the objective grounds upon which to
base its fight. And this is the point that has escaped the
commentators on both sides of the debate.[11]
There are other positive features in the book such as the
development of the implications in Marx's and Engels' theory of
imperialism and of the increasing famine and environmental destruction
which are integral parts of capitalist development. This is the object
of the last three chapters. Also of great interest is the detailed
analysis of the capitalist economy's course in the second half of the
twentieth century and of the crises that are the signposts of this
course. This is what chapters 6 through 11 are about. These chapters
are both clearly written and informative. But, aside from these
positive features three critical comments are in order.
Harman stresses correctly that "the only source of value
... is labour" so that if constant capital invested grows
proportionally more than variable capital, in other words if the
organic composition of capital grows, the average rate of profit
falls. The reason for this fall is technological competition that
gives a cutting edge to the innovators at the expense of the laggards
(p.70). However, there are four ambiguities in the text that should be
clarified. They concern more the exposition than the theoretical
content of the book.
The first ambiguity is that Harman, after having pointed
out that the rate of profit falls because technological competition
expels labour and thus reduces the source of value, seems to stress
that that fall is due to lower prices following a rapid rate of
accumulation "and this hits profits"(p.60). Within a temporal
perspective, lower output prices at the end of this period are also
lower input prices at the beginning of the next period and all we have
is a temporary fluctuation in the average profit rate. However, in
terms of value analysis, a lower production of value during this
period is also a lower realization of value at the end of this same
period and thus less value can be invested in the next period. On this
account, the fall in the production of value and thus in profitability
is permanent. But, as we shall see shortly, lower unit prices (values)
cannot be the cause of crises.
The second ambiguity, which is related to the first one,
is that whereas the increase in the organic composition is identified
by Harman as the ultimate cause of the fall in the average rate of
profit, in the actual exposition of the argument the increase in the
organic composition of capital seems to be one of the many factors
affecting the course of the average profit rate. It might be worth
recalling that the increase in the organic composition of capital is
the tendency while the fall in that composition due for example to the
cheaper means of production as a consequence of the same technological
innovations is one of the counter-tendencies. The cheaper means of
production reduce the value of the output produced with those means of
production. The producers still using the old and more expensive means
of production can charge for their output only what it would have cost
them to produce that output with the new and cheaper means of
production. They suffer a loss for that much. For them it is as if
some capital had been destroyed. But there is no destruction of
capital for the economy as a whole because the value they do not
realize is redistributed to the producers using the new and cheaper
means of production through the price mechanism. The depreciation of
the old means of production is thus no destruction of value and thus
cannot be the factor (or one of the factors) that accounts for the
revival of the economy. To hold the contrary would mean to hold onto
an individualistic methodology, the very opposite of Marx's method.
Rather, if capital is a social relation, a relation between capital
and labour, the destruction of capital is basically the termination of
those relations that becomes manifest as unemployment.
The third ambiguity concerns the relation between Harman's analysis
and the so-called Value Form Theory. According to the author, "The
concrete labours of the individuals is transformed through exchange
... into a proportionate part of "homogeneous", "social" labour - or
abstract labour" (p.26, see also p.117). This formulation could
suggest that Harman adheres to the Value Form theory, something he
does not. Yet, in my opinion, the passage above is or can be
misleading. The Value Form theory should be rejected not so much
because it deviates from Marx but because, by deviating from Marx, it
becomes logically inconsistent. First, use values are different by
definition. Exchange cannot equalize them because equalization or
quantitative comparability presupposes that something that makes
exchange possible. Two apples cannot be exchanged for one pear unless
something establishes that exchange ratio prior to exchange, at the
level of production. If this is not done, the exchange ratios become
indeterminate. Money cannot fulfil the role of the homogenizing
factor. To express something common to the different use values,
money must be the necessary form of existence of something common to
those different use values. This something cannot be any concrete
labour but has to be the abstract labour contained in those
commodities.[12] By holding that exchange equalizes and thus expresses
quantitatively the different use values, the Value Form approach joins
the orthodox and the neo-Ricardian economics. Therefore, like the
neo-Ricardian and the neo-classical theories, the Value Form Theory
too shipwrecks against the incommensurability problem. It is just
because of this that Marx introduced abstract labour at the level of
production. Second, as Marx points out, at the moment of exchange the
use value of the commodity is null. At the moment of exchange, the
commodity sold has no use value for the seller for the simple reason
that the seller cannot use it any longer and has no use value for the
buyer either because the buyer cannot use it yet. Exchange would
conjure up value out of nothing, out of non-existent use values.[13]
Third, if concrete labour is created in production and thus is
embodied in the product before exchange (a non-contentious point) and
if abstract labour is socially validated concrete labour in exchange
(the Value Form thesis), then the substance of abstract labour would
be use values. The substance of value, then, understood here as
concrete labour, would be embodied in the commodity before exchange,
it would exist before social validation contrary to the Value Form
position. And finally, if abstract labour comes to life only at the
moment and through exchange[14], if it does not exist before exchange,
the difference between production of value and its realization is
erased. Identity of production and realization implies cancelling
time, i.e. simultaneism, with the conclusions outlined above.[15]
Finally, the fourth ambiguity that would require
clarification is the relation between the law and underconsumption.
Harman quotes Marx to the effect that "the antagonistic conditions of
distribution ... reduce the consumption of the bulk of society to a
minimum" (p.58). While this passage has been interpreted as if lower
wages made it impossible for labour to consume all the produced wage
goods, thus decreasing profits and contributing to the emergence or
worsening of the crisis, Harman correctly rejects this interpretation.
In a private correspondence, Harman points out that "cutting workers
wages of consumption can provide the conditions for preventing a fall
in the rate of profit (or even increase the rate of profit), but does
not guarantee that an increase in investment follows, and if there is
no increase in investment there will be a crisis of realisation". But
in his book Harman submits that if firms can force down real wages,
some consumer goods will go unsold and profit rates will fall thus
"producing recession" (76). This passage could be interpreted as if
lower wages would decrease the average rate of profit rather than
increasing it. However, for Marx lower wages increase profit rates,
always. It is for Keynes that lower wages can decrease profits through
the workers' underconsumption, i.e. due unsold wage goods. What
follows shows the fallacy of underconsumption.
To begin with, let us consider the most favourable case
for underconsumptionism. Suppose that all the commodities not
purchased by labour cannot be purchased by capital either. Labour's
purchasing power falls by the amount of the wage cut and this is a
loss for the producers (capitalists) of wage goods. This wage cut is
then the maximum loss for capital due to lower wages. The extra
surplus value accruing to capital due to lower wages is cancelled
because the unsold commodities are a loss: 'the labourer has been
indeed exploited, but his exploitation is not realised as such for the
capitalist'.[16] Gain and loss cancel each other out and the numerator
of the profit rate (the surplus value) returns to the level prior to
the wage cut. But the average rate of profit does not rerun to this
level because the denominator (the constant and variable capital) is
now lower by the amount of the wage cut. Thus the average rate of
profit is higher than its pre-wage cut level even in the case of
maximum loss (all the wage goods corresponding to the wage cuts are
unsold). This is sufficient to definitely reject the
underconsumptionist thesis, i.e. that crises are caused or aggravated
by lower wages.[17]
If underconsumption cannot cause the crisis, it must be a
consequence of the crisis. For Marx, the ultimate cause of crises
should be sought in the introduction of new technologies. They on the
one hand increase labour's productivity (units of output per unit of
capital invested) and on the other reduce the labour power relative to
the means of production employed per unit of capital, i.e. increase
the ratio of constant capital to variable capital (the organic
composition of capital). If less variable capital and more constant
capital is employed percentagewise, the average rate of profit falls.
It falls not "because labour becomes less productive, but because it
becomes more productive".[18] This is the tendency that explains the
origin of crises. There are counter-tendencies that hold back, even if
only temporarily, the tendential fall. But le us consider only the
tendency in order to better evaluate the alternative theories.
Suppose an initial situation in the consumption goods
sector such that 80c+20v+20s = 120V is incorporated in 120 means of
consumption(use values). If abstraction is made of the means of
production sector, the average rate of profit (ARP) is 20%. Suppose
now that new technologies are introduced so that the new situation is
90c+10v+10s =110V incorporated in 220 means of consumption. The ARP
falls to 11.11%. The unit price falls from 120/120 = 1 to 220/110 =
0.5. Before the new technologies, the 120 consumption goods were
distributed in equal parts between capital and labour (given that the
rate of exploitation was 20s/20v = 100%). After the introduction of
the new technologies, each class receives 110 consumption goods. Under
the assumption that each unit of variable capital represents a worker,
10 workers have lost their job. However, all consumption goods have
been sold and the rate of exploitation has remained the same.
Unemployment does not necessarily create underconsumption if the goods
not bought by the unemployed worker are bought by those who are still
employed. There is no underconsumption either if the rate of
exploitation rises and the capitalists buy the goods that cannot be
bought by the workers. There is underconsumption only if neither the
capitalists nor the workers can purchase all the consumption goods.
This is the crisis of underconsumption. But this presupposes that the
economy has already entered the crisis because now the purchasing
power at the disposal of both classes is insufficient. The question,
then is what is the cause of the lack of purchasing power. This is the
profitability crisis, the fall of the ARP from 20% to 11.11% in the
example above, due in its turn to technological competition which is
the motor of capitalist dynamism.
It follows that crises are not caused by a decreased consumption of
the means of consumption (underconsumption) but by an increased
production of consumption goods per unit of capital invested together
with a decreased production of value and surplus value per unit of
capital invested. This movement becomes manifest as a fall in the ARP.
It follows also that crises are not due to a fall in prices. In the
example above, unit prices fall from 1.0 to 0.5 but they fall because
less value and surplus value has been produced. They are a consequence
and a manifestation of the crisis, not their cause. In short, crises
are caused neither by lower wages, nor by underconsumption, nor by
falling prices. They are due to the decreasing production of value and
surplus value as a consequence of technological competition, something
that appears in the apparently irrational contradiction between a
falling ARP together with a rise in the goods produced and a fall in
employment. In the last analysis, the extent and depth of the crisis
is measured by the rate of unemployment and of exploitation. This is
the perspective of the collective labourer.
The average hides fundamental differences. Crises do not
result in a general impoverishment but the impoverishment of the
majority together with a concentration of wealth in the hands of a
minority. As far as the workers go, in the above example those who
have not lost their jobs receive a greater quantity (but the same
percentage share) of consumption goods because the rate of
exploitation has not changed. However, due to a greater bargaining
power following rising unemployment, the capitalists can force the
employed (and the same applies to pensioners, etc.) to accept lower
wages and higher rates of exploitation. This enriches the capitalists
as a whole but impoverishes the labourers. But within this greater
appropriation of value, some capitalists gain more and other gain less
and might even go bust. Let us see how and why.
Consider two capitalists within the same sector (a similar
argument can be made in case of more than one sector). Originally,
they both use the same, low technology, e.g. 70c+30v+30s = 130V. The
output is, say, 100 use values. Subsequently, one of them introduces a
new, higher technology, e.g. 80c+20v+20s = 120V. This capital's
output rises to 400 use values. The ARP falls from 30% to 25%. But
this average implies a redistribution of surplus value. The unit price
(value) is now 250/500 = 0.5. The high technology capital realizes
400x0.5 = 200V and thus a profit of 100 and a rate of profit of 100%.
The low technology capital realizes 100x0.5 = 50V and thus loses 50V.
In this example, the former capital appropriates not only the surplus
value (30) but also a part of the value invested by the latter capital
(20). The movement expressing itself as the fall in the ARP causes en
enrichment of the capitalist class as a whole but within it a
concentration of value in the hands of the most efficient capitals at
the cost of the less efficient capitalists (many of whom fold up in
times of crises) and of rising unemployment and of higher rates of
exploitation.
Marx's approach has been variously challenged by Marxists and
non-Marxists alike. Let us evaluate the most influential alternative
explanations.
(1) The physicalist theories, basically the neo-classical,
the neo-Ricardian and the Keynesian theories, reach conclusions
opposite to those of Marx. The reason is that they reject the reality
of abstract labour and thus of value and reason only in terms of use
values. If only use values and thus if only concrete labour are
thought to exist, if abstract labour as the creator of value is
evicted, then labour is reduced to a cost (rather then to the value
creating activity) and an increase in productivity cannot but reduce
the cost of production per unit of capital invested. It follows that
for physicalism, if new technologies are introduced the ARP rises
instead of falling. But there is a problem here: physicalism, by
rejecting the reality of abstract labour shipwrecks against the
incommensurability problem. Very simply put, use values are by
definition different. Then, in the absence of that homogeneous
substance that is abstract labour, no quantitative measurement and
comparison is possible. Unfortunately for physicalism, no solution
exists for this internal inconsistency. Keynes was aware of the
problem. After having noticed that "Two incommensurable collections of
miscellaneous objects cannot in themselves provide the material for a
quantitative analysis," he comes up with a truly astonishing
consideration: this "fact ... need not, of course, prevent us from
making approximate statistical comparisons".[19] As if two
incommensurable quantities could be 'approximately' measured and
compared! They cannot, either exactly or approximately. The reason
for this 'oversight' is that no physicalist author can admit of this
inconsistency for two fundamental reasons. First, to admit that there
is a problem of incommensurability would mean to admit that the whole
theory is built on quicksand. Second, if the theory is indefensible it
becomes impossible to hold onto the position that technological
innovations, the factor that accounts for capitalism's dynamism,
increase the ARP rather than decreasing it, that capitalism tends
towards growth and equilibrium rather than towards crises, i.e. that
it is a rational system. But physicalism's reason of existence is that
it 'shows' that the system is rational, that the workers' struggle to
abolish capitalism and replace it with a different one is both
objectively irrational and subjectively voluntaristic. Which is
exactly capital's view.
(2) It has been argued above that the attempt to single out a too low
level of wages as the prime cause of crises leads to a theoretical
inconsistency. The opposite approach is the 'profit squeeze' theory
that was popular within some Marxist circles in the 1970's and which
seems to have a revival nowadays. This theory stresses that crises are
due to a too high level of wages. Given that wages and profits are in
inverse relation, this approach seems to fit eminently well into
Marx's paradigm. Unfortunately, the supporters of this view seem to
ignore that Marx once remarked: "nothing is more absurd ... then to
explain the fall in the rate of profit by a rise in the rate of
wages". The reason is that "The tendency of the rate of profit to fall
is bound up with a tendency of the rate of surplus-value to rise."[20]
In other words, it is just when capital is hit by the crisis and
labour is hit by unemployment that capital can force higher rates of
exploitation on the workers.[21] Marx's argument is correct, but does
not address the issue of the origin of crises. The argument can be
complemented by further considerations. First of all, concerning the
present crisis, one would expect that the world economy, and
especially the US economy, would have embarked long ago on a long-term
period of economic growth, given the value of minimum wages in the US
has fallen by no less than 25.7% in the 1967-2005 period.[22]
Secondly, on a more theoretical level, in order to understand the
origin of crises one has to start from a period of economic growth.
According to the profit-squeeze theory, in the upwards phase of the
cycle at a certain point wages start rising, thus eating away into
profits. However, in the upwards phase profits increase, unless one
wants to define this phase as one of falling profits! Thus, in terms
of the theory, in this phase both profits and wages must increase.
This is possible only if the mass of both value and surplus value
increases. And this is exactly what happens. Suppose that surplus
value increases by, say, 5% due to expanded reproduction. Any
redistribution of this extra surplus value is theoretically possible.
For example, 1% can go to wages and 4% to profits. Hence, in the high
phase higher wages do not necessarily decrease profits and crises do
not follow. The theory is fails. But there is more. The thermometer of
the capitalist economy's health is the ARP, rather than the mass of
surplus value. In a period of growth new production units come into
being. If they have a higher organic composition, the mass of surplus
value rises but the ARP falls. Which explains why and how the seeds of
crises are already present in the upwards phase of the cycle.
There is one way one could try and rescue the profit squeeze theory,
the assumption that the mass of surplus value falls instead of rising.
In this case, higher wages would indeed necessarily dent profits. But
this would mean to fall out of the frying pan into the fire. In fact,
one would assume what has to be explained, namely a decreasing mass of
profit, i.e. the downwards phase, and thus the crisis.
A last critique. This theory leads naturally to the conclusion that
crises could be avoided if only the workers were to restrain their
demands. Then, the blame for the crises falls squarely upon the
workers' shoulders. Which is, again, music in capital's ears.
(3) While the theories discussed above focus on one element as the
prime cause of crises, some Marxist or Marxisant authors reject what
they see as mono-causality, especially the tendential fall in the ARP.
According to these authors, there is no single explanation valid for
all crises, except that they are all a 'property' of capitalism, that
crises are a property that becomes manifest differently in different
forms in different periods and contexts. However, if this elusive and
mysterious property becomes manifest as different causes of different
crises while it itself remains unknowable, if we do not know all these
different causes come from, we have no crisis theory. Moreover, if it
is agreed that crises manifest themselves as a falling ARP (without
necessarily agreeing that this fall is determined by an increasing
organic composition and thus ultimately by technological competition),
if one resorts to the theories criticized above for an explanation of
the peculiarities of each crisis, one is left empty-handed because -
as argued - none of those theories can explain that tendential fall
except the tendential fall in the ARP.
(4) All the theories discussed above have Marx as a
reference point, even if in various ways and degrees. But there are
also theories of a different and opposite kind that submit that the
cause of crises resides in the financial and speculative sphere,
namely in extremely high levels of debt, rampant speculation, a
permissive monetary policy, the loosening of rules governing borrowing
and lending due to deregulation, and so on. From here the crisis
overflows into the real economy. In short, the crisis is due to
mistakes in the financial and monetary sphere. The obvious question
is: given that crises area a constant and recurrent feature of
capitalism, if they are due in the last instance to the mistakes of
the financial and monetary authorities as well as of the politicians,
of governments, etc., why do they recur as a constant feature of the
system? In other words, why can the policy makers not learn from their
mistakes? Obviously, there must be structural, economic reasons that
not only prevent them from learning from their past mistakes but that
actually force them to repeat recurrently those mistakes. In other
words, the origin of the financial and speculative crises should be
sought in the real economy, in the production of value and surplus
value, rather than as it is fashionable nowadays turning the relation
of cause and effect upside-down.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This review article was finished a few days before Chris Harman's
untimely death.
[2] Von Böhm-Bawerk argued that there is a contradiction between the
first and the third volume of Capital. See: Von Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen
1973 [1896], 'Karl Marx and the Close of his System', in Karl
Marx and the close of his system, edited by Paul Sweezy, Fairfield:
Kelley Publishers. For a refutation of this critique see Ernst, John
1982, 'Simultaneous Valuation Extirpated: a Contribution of the
Critique of the Neo-Ricardian Concept of Value', Review of
Radical Political Economics, 14, 2: 85-94; Carchedi (1984), The Logic
of Prices As Values, Economy and Society, 13, 4: 431-455; Freeman,
Alan and Carchedi Guglielmo (eds.) 1996, Marx and Non-Equilibrium
Economics, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar and Kliman (2007), Reclaiming
Marx's "Capital": A Refutation of the Myth of Inconsistency, Lanham:
Lexington Books.
[3] Von Bortkiewicz, Ladislaus 1971 [1906], 'Calcolo del Valore e
Calcolo del Prezzo nel Sistema Marxiano', in von Bortkiewicz, La
Teoria Economica di Marx, Torino: Einaudi. p.30
[4] Sweezy, Paul 1970 [1942], The Theory of Capitalist Development:
Principles of Marxian Political Economy, New York: Monthly
Review Press.
[5] The same applies to expanded reproduction.
[6] Perez, Manuel 1980, 'Valeur et Prix: un Essai de Critique des
Propositions Néo-Ricardiannes', Critiques de l'Economie Politique,
Nouvelle Série, 10: 122-149; Ernst, John 1982, 'Simultaneous Valuation
Extirpated: a Contribution of the Critique of the Neo-Ricardian
Concept of Value', Review of Radical Political Economics, 14, 2:
85-94; Carchedi (1984), The Logic of Prices As Values, Economy and
Society, 13, 4: 431-455.
[7] Marx, 1988 [1861-63], 'Economic Manuscript of 1861--63', in Marx
and Engels Collected Works Volume 30, Moscow: Progress Publishers.
[8] Harman points out that "The method of simultaneous equations
assumes that the price of the inputs to production have to be equal to
the prices of the outputs. But they do not" (p.49). This is true. But
the reason is that the inputs of a certain production process are not
the outputs of the same process. This is the critical point from which
the point made by Harman is derived.
[9] This is not the same as disequilibrium because disequilibrium,
being a deviation from equilibrium, implies the latter. But
equilibrium, and thus disequilibrium, are ideological concepts with no
scientific value whatsoever.
[10] As Harman stresses, "Marx's basic concepts survive all the
criticisms once they are not interpreted through the static framework,
ignoring the process of change through time that characterizes the
neoclassical system"(p.53).
[11] For a more detailed exposition of the above, see Carchedi, Limits
and Challenges of the Consistency Debate in Marxian Value Theory,
Research in Political Economy, vol. 25, pp. 233-275. See also
Carchedi, Behind the Crisis, Brill, Leiden, forthcoming.
[12] 'Money is labour time in the form of a general object, or the
objectification of general labour time, labour time as a general
commodity.' Marx, 1973 [1939], Grundrisse, Hardmondsworth: Penguin
Books, p. 168.
[13] The commodity might have a subjective use value but this is
irrelevant because at the moment of exchange the objective use value,
the objective use to which that commodity can be put is non-existent.
The alternative is to step over to a subjectivist theory of prices,
that is, to leave Marx definitely.
[14] For Arthur, abstract labour has no material existence before
exchange. See Chris Arthur 2004, The New Dialectic and Marx's
'Capital', Historical Materialism Book Series, Leiden: Brill. For
Murray general abstract labour is 'nothing actual.' See Murray,
Patrick 2000, 'Marx's "Truly Social" Labor Theory of Value. Part I,
Abstract Labor in Marxian Value Theory', Historical Materialism, 6:
27-65. For Heinrich "value can only exist if there is an independent
and general form of value - money". See Michael Heinrich 2004,
'Ambivalences of Marx's Critique of Political Economy as Obstacles for
the Analysis of Contemporary Capitalism', Historical Materialism,
Annual Conference, 10 October, London, revised paper.
[15] For a much more detailed critique of the Value Form Theory and of
its many internal inconsistencies, see Carchedi, 2009, The Fallacies
of 'New Dialectics' and Value-Form Theory, Historical Materialism, 17,
pp. 145-169.
[16] Marx, 1967, Capital , Volume III, Progress Publishers: Moscow. p. 244.
[17] In a two-sector economy, an increase in the average rate of
profit takes place at the cost of labour (due to lower wages and to
lower purchasing power for wage goods) and at the cost of the
capitalists producing wage goods. The average rate of profit rises
because the gains in sector 1 more than compensate the loss in sector
2. For a rigorous proof, see Guglielmo Carchedi, Behind the Crisis,
Brill, Leiden, forthcoming.
[18] Marx, Capital III, International Publishers, 1967, p. 240.
[19] John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest
and Money, Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., 1964, p. 39.
[20] Marx 1967, Capital Volume III, Progress Publishers: Moscow, p. 240.
[21] It is clear that, within this context, the fall in the rate of
profit is the tendency while the rise of the rate of surplus value is
the counter-tendency.
[22] Bernstein Jared, Mishel Lawrence and Shierholz Heidi 2006-7, The
State of Working America, Washington: Economic Policy Institute, table
3.40.
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
